High School Football: Coatesville ends Spring-Ford's season in wild district final

DOWNINGTOWN — Most football teams see opportunity arise from big hits, big stops and, of course, turnovers. Coatesville sees opportunity the moment it touches the football.

Coatesville doesn’t waste opportunities ... nor time, either.

In Friday night’s District 1-Class AAAA final, the Red Raiders scored the first six times they took possession — seven overall when including a fumble return for another touchdown — to continually thwart early Spring-Ford comebacks and run away with a 59-28 romp at Downingtown West High School’s Kottmeyer Field.

The No. 9 seed Red Raiders averaged over eight yards for their 50 snaps. And, for the most part, it all began with Emmett Hunt and Chris Jones, and ended with Daquan Worley.

Hunt, the 6-foot-2, 210-pound senior quarterback, may have been hurried occasionally, but completed 13 of 18 attempts for 172 yards and four touchdowns — three to Jones and the other to Dre Boggs. He also carried five times for 25 yards and a score. Worley, a 5-foot-10, 185-pound running back, took 18 handoffs for 182 yards and two touchdowns.

The scores, all of them, were textbook execution, with a bit of quickness and a lot of speed as well.

Enough to advance the red-hot Red Raiders (12-2) into next week’s PIAA semifinals against this afternoon’s battle between La Salle and Parkland, and end the winningest season in the history of the Spring-Ford program.

“It’s not just their speed and their athleticism, but they’re big and strong, too,” said Spring-Ford head coach Chad Brubaker. “What don’t they have?”

Good question.Friday night, Coatesville didn’t lack a thing, with the possible exception of some focus that led to 10 penalties for 70 yards.

“We didn’t think (beating Coatesville) was impossible,” said junior Tate Carter, “but we knew we were up against the odds. They just played harder. They wanted it more.”

Carter, along with quarterback Hank Coyne and some unsung work up front by the Rams’ offensive line, were among the few bright spots on the final night of November that got colder and colder — thanks to Mother Nature as well as Coatesville cold shoulder, or chilly reception it gave Spring-Ford right before and right after the break.

Coyne’s eight-yard touchdown pass to Gary Hopkins got Spring-Ford to within 28-21 with 4:15 remaining in the half. But Coatesville took the ensuing kickoff and Hunt engineered an eight-play drive into the end zone, his 14-yard toss to Jones to push the lead back to 35-21.And if that wasn’t enough, two snaps after the break, Hunt found Boggs for 21 yards and Worley took the following handoff 51 yards for a touchdown to create a 42-21 spread. If it wasn’t over at that point, it was soon after when Isaiah Flamer picked off Coyne to set up Jon Bollenbach’s 27-yard field goal just over two minutes later that made it 45-21.“At halftime we still thought we could come back,” said Carter, who had a 91-yad kick return for a touchdown and six catches for 71 yards and another score. “We thought we could keep on scoring. But after that (Worley 51-yard touchdown run) you could see some of our heads go down. It seemed like some of them gave up after that.“(Coatesville’s) speed just outmatched us. That was the difference. We just weren’t good enough.”Brubaker, like Carter and the rest of the Rams, knew the late first-half score hurt ... but not as badly as the next one.“We didn’t feel at all like we were out of the game at the half,” he explained. “But then we come out and in two plays (Coatesville’s) in the end zone again. That’s kind of tough to recover from. I think if we held them at the end of the first half we would’ve felt better about ourselves, but then giving up that score right after (halftime) ... that hurt.”Coatesville, the first Ches-Mont League team to win the AAAA title since Downingtown’s remarkable run in 1996, needed six plays to take a 7-0 lead. Hunt found Boggs from 11 yards out and Bollenbach added the first of his eight placements. Less than 90 seconds later, R.J. Sheldon pulled in a 12-yard pass from Coyne, but was stripped of the ball and Devonte Suber not only picked it up but returned it 38 yards for a touchdown that made it 14-0.But Carter’s 91-yard return of the ensuing kickoff didn’t let things get entirely out of hand. And when Hunt sneaked in from a yard away on Coatesville’s next possession, a proverbial track meet began.Spring-Ford responded with Coyne’s 14-yard strike to Carter; Coatesville followed with Hunt’s 22-yarder to Jones; Spring-Ford came back Coyne’s eight-yarer to Hopkins; and Coatesville finished the half with that confidence-crushing Hunt-to-Jones 14-yard touchdown pass.The race slowed considerably after Worley’s long run and Bollenbach’s field goal. However, when Worley ran 11 yards and Hunt threw seven yards to Jones, it was 59-21 and invoked the running clock with 9:13 remaining.Nowhere near enough time ... and way too much time to feel the effects of the Rams’ season running out on them.“I know it sounds like a repeat of last year,” Brubaker said, referring to Coatesville’s very similar 60-28 first-round rout. “But we just needed that one play. This shows how far we’ve come this year, but Coatesville just played a great game. They’re a great team.”“I’m proud of this team,” Carter added. “No one thought we’d beat Garnet Valley, and definitely no one thought we’d beat Ridley or Pennridge. But we played well. We really wanted to get here.”